Derek Sargent
Derek Sargent graduated from the University of South Australia in 2013 where he won the Constance Gordon-Johnson Sculpture and Installation Prize. He has exhibited at the National Graduate Exhibition at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Helpmann Academy Graduate exhibition. He has had solo exhibitions at Fontanelle in Adelaide, Constance in Hobart and Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney. He has also been exhibited in both New York and London. In 2015 he was awarded the Anne & Gordon Samstag international visual arts scholarship and traveled to London to complete a Graduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Chelsea College of the Arts.Derek is currently based in Bergen Norway where he is completing his Masters in Fine Art.
Feltdark: Derek Sargent (sa) and Jess Miley (Hungary) - Grave Project: Queers of the East (Hungary),
Derek Sargent and Jess Miley performative research project ‘The Grave Project’, researches historic individuals who have had an impact on queer and non-normative culture. This research culminates in a pilgrimage to these individuals burial site. The project examines the way the queerness of these historical figures is used in the construction of their historical biographies, Derek Sargent and Jess Miley have been collaborating together for over three years on their artistic performative research project ‘The Grave Project’, which researches historic individuals who have had an impact on queer and non-normative culture. The project examines the way the queerness of these historical figures is used in the construction of their historical biographies and how, where they lived, either by choice or not, had a profound effect on their queer story. These personal histories act as a framework to examine contemporary ideas around queer existence. This research culminates in a pilgrimage to these individuals burial site which is documented in photography, film and text to create an alternative historical archive. Jess is currently located in Gyula, Hungary where she runs Ways House a queer feminist art residency in Eastern Hungary.
Image: The Grave Project: Queers of the East (Hungary), 2019, single channel film, 5:40. (Video Still)
8th - 24th March 2018
FRONT GALLERY: DEREK SARGENT (SA) - GENUINE & AUTHENTIC
Genuine & Authentic is a new installation work inspired by my time in New York and London. It excavates themes of queer identity and invests the ways in which queer and non-normative narratives are accounted for within collective history and memory. Concerned with the opposition of public and private lives and questioning why authenticity and the power structures it creates are privileged.
Photography by Steph Fuller